Reason.tv: Life, Liberty & Happiness - Q&A with American Visionary Art Museum's Rebecca Hoffberger

The word liberty is used a lot but it's not often that individuals think deeply about what the word means, says Rebecca Hoffberger, the founder of Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM.) 

Hoffberger's goal with AVAM was to create "a grassroots salon that would tackle all the great themes that have ever bedeviled and inspired human kind." The most recent exhibition, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness featured a wide range of self-taught artists including Saddam Hussein's personal doctor, Ala Bashir, and a schizophrenic hoarder named Dick Lubinsky. The exhibition provides an unforgettable commentary on an American truism. Hoffberger explains that art is strongest when it portray's life experiences that are "too big for words" and that art is powerful tool for those trying to express "the need for liberty."   

Produced by Dan Hayes. Camera by Jim Epstein and Joshua Swain. Edited by Hayes. Music by Dan Thieman.

Approximately 7.30 minutes.

Go to www.reason.tv for downloadable versions of the video and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

Comments

[Rich]

Thanks to Reason.tv for this video.

AVAM, I have found, is not appreciated by everyone; but if you, so to speak, have the eyes to see, then visiting the place is quite worthwhile. Some of the stuff is truly mindblowing, particularly when one factors in the often tragic stories of many of these artists.

[Wegie]

Who?

[Mongo]

I, for one, greatly appreciate Reason covering visual arts.

You gotta steal that cover artist who does the Weekly Standard covers. Man, those covers are great.

I'm not keen on folk art but I am an aficionado of visionary and psychotic Outsider art.

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[jb]

The video makes me want to visit the museum. Much of the art depicted conveys what I would want to experience at at museum of art celebrating life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nevertheless, I was a bit taken aback by the overtly patriotic artwork present in the form of hackneyed US flag and Uncle Sam motifs. At long last, can we please dispense with the notion that the United States and its governing institutions invented liberty?

[jb]

By the way REASON, the exhibit opened October 3rd 2009 and closes September 5th 2010. REASON posts about a year long art exhibit two days prior to its closing? Way to drop the ball.

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